


we see by christmas lights

by resistate



Series: Martingales [1]
Category: Canadian Ice Dancing RPF, Figure Skating RPF
Genre: (attempts at) Healthy Communication, Alcohol, Christmas, Chronic Pain, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17040776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate/pseuds/resistate
Summary: Random Tuesday thinking-of-you cards: an origin story.





	we see by christmas lights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sonni89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonni89/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Sonni89! I had so much fun with your prompts and I hope you enjoy this fic! (And, um. Expect some NYR fills for stuff I couldn’t finish in time due to technical difficulties, if you’re still in the fandom?)

December 2009

Tessa Virtue didn’t waste a lot of time feeling sorry for herself, as a rule. But it was Christmas Day, and she was at practice in Michigan instead of home with her family in Ontario, and Scott was trying to get her to laugh at his Meryl impersonation while Meryl was only down the far end of the ice, so she was tempted to make an exception.

She’d managed to get Scott to cut out his Charlie impersonation by pointing out that he didn’t have the hair for it. It’s harder to get him to stop acting like Meryl, because he has her nasal voice and her butter-wouldn’t-melt competition face down cold. And because Tessa is about five seconds away from laughing, and she knows Scott knows it. ‘Stop it,’ she hisses, reaching over to poke him in the ribcage, but Scott just skates out of reach, still pretending to be Meryl.

They’re having a practice session today because the Olympics are only 56 days away. It’s true that it’s only a half-day session, but they’d had a half-day session yesterday and they’ll have a half-day session tomorrow. They have a rest day to look forward to the day after Boxing Day, but they’d decided, she and Scott, that they weren’t going to make the drive back across the border this year. They’d talked it over with Marina and Igor and had decided that they were going to put in the extra practice time. It was only one Christmas. Tessa felt that it was a responsible, adult decision. It wasn’t as big a decision as giving up the National Ballet to skate with Scott, or moving to Canton to skate with Scott, but it wasn’t a decision they’d made lightly. Tessa was finding it harder than she’d expected, but her mother was coming down mid-week next week for a couple of days, and Nationals were in Mississauga in January. They’d arranged to take an extra day off and see their families then.

Meryl and Charlie finish running through their circular step sequence and skate over to meet Marina and Igor at the boards. Scott had skated back over to Tessa once he’d realised she wasn’t going to chase him all over everywhere. They're supposed to be taking a short break because of her legs. The half-day sessions are in part because of her, because of her legs.

She tries to use the time to run through their free dance in her head, element by element, but she keeps glancing over to the boards and wondering what feedback Meryl and Charlie are getting.

She sees Scott follow her gaze. ‘Hey, Virtch, whaddaya get me?’ he says.

‘Nothing,’ Tessa says, automatically. Marina is frowning, but that could mean anything.

‘Hey, we don’t need to waste our time thinking about them,’ Scott says, in her ear in what Tessa thinks of as his ‘buck up, kiddo’ voice. Then, in his regular voice, ‘What do you mean you didn’t get me anything?’

She stares at him. ‘What are you talking about? What would I get you?’

Scott looks at her, a huge shit-eating grin on his face, like he’s played a prank on her and gotten away with it. Jesus, they aren’t seven and nine anymore.

‘It’s Christmas,’ Scott says.

‘Believe me,’ Tessa says, ‘it did not escape my attention that we’re here, working, instead of—’

 _Oh_. Scott wants to know what she got him for Christmas. The answer is nothing, because she’d forgotten. _Fuck_. They’ve been so busy, and it doesn’t help that by this point in the season the months are marked mostly by competitions. September is the month before TEB; October is the month before Skate Canada; November is the month before GPF; December is the month before Nationals. Nationals are the same month Tessa gets to celebrate Christmas with her family. There’s a convoluted logic to why Tessa forgot to get Scott anything, but she feels like shit anyway.

‘I thought we were going to do Christmas in January,’ she says weakly.

‘Nice try,’ Scott crows. ‘You forgot.’

‘Yeah, I forgot,’ Tessa admits. ‘Sorry?’ she offers.

‘Eh, it’s not like we’ve been, you know, busy training for the Olympics or anything,’ Scott says. ‘Means you’re not going to get what I got for you today though.’

He sounds downright gleeful and Tessa groans. She feels even worse now that Scott is being so— _Scott_ —about it, clowning around and being supportive, rather than sulking and acting neglected.

Scott pretends to misunderstand, of course. ‘No use complaining, T,’ he says. ‘Where’s the love? Where’s the reciprocity?’

This time she does manage to jab Scott before he can dance of reach, and then Marina glares at them because they’re goofing around instead of getting in position, and then it’s their turn to go through their circular step sequence five more times.

She and Scott have exchanged presents at Christmas for as long as they’ve known each other. At first their mothers had picked out toys or equipment with input from their children and had made them exchange clumsily-wrapped packages at the last practice before the holidays. Even when they’d reached the age where they’d refused to get the other anything, their mothers had continued blithely exchanging presents on Tessa and Scott's behalf. They'd continued the tradition themselves when they’d moved away from home six years ago. Scott always gets her chocolates because he knows they’re her guilty pleasure, and she usually gets him something plastered with the Maple Leafs insignia because he’s loyal to a fault. Last year was the only year they hadn’t gotten each other anything at all, but that was last year. She’d been planning on getting Scott something this year.

‘I’ll get you something when the stores open back up,’ she mumbles during a hold and Scott tells her not to be ridiculous, she doesn’t have to worry.

 

He doesn’t let it drop, is the thing.

He teases her for forgetting about him when they’re unlacing their skates and again when they’re trudging through icy slush to his car. Tessa’s getting more and more irritated, but she tries not to encourage him by reacting. When Scott brings it up yet again outside her door, she snaps, ‘At least I didn’t forget to talk to you for two months.’

He’d been examining the wreath hanging on Tessa’s door, pine boughs intertwined with sprigs of holly, but now his eyes meet hers, surprised.

‘Sorry,’ Tessa mumbles after a moment. Scott shrugs.

She doesn’t head inside because leaving feels like the wrong thing to do right now, and Scott doesn’t leave either. He stares at a point somewhere over Tessa’s left shoulder, and they both stand outside Tessa’s door, not saying anything, until Scott breaks the silence. ‘We still on for later?’

‘Definitely, yeah,’ Tessa says, too brightly.

Scott’s still not looking at her, but he holds out one fist and she taps it, an abbreviated version of the complicated handshake they’ve developed over the years. She heads inside.

 

Tessa has a nap and then Skypes her parents and her brothers and Jordan before walking over to Scott’s. They’ve arranged to cook together, not a turkey dinner but something slightly more festive and slightly less healthy than their usual training regime allows. They follow a recipe for chicken cacciatore from Scott’s mom, Scott looking after the meat and Tessa looking after the vegetables. Tessa has to make an effort not to retreat into herself while they’re cooking but Scott notices and asks what’s up by way of a tilt of his head and a look that she can respond to or ignore; it’s up to her. She admits that she misses her family and Scott puts down the knife he’s been using on the chicken and hugs her and admits he hasn’t even felt up to talking to his family yet.

The chicken doesn’t taste quite as good as it does when Alma makes it, but it’s still good. They eat at the table, just the two of them plus the lingering tension from earlier. Tessa’s tempted to try and break it by acknowledging it, but she’s not sure what to say, so she doesn’t say anything.

After supper, Scott clears the table and loads the dishwasher and Tessa peels and slices apples. She combines them with lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar, using a pot because Scott doesn’t have a large enough bowl. She’d brought a glass casserole dish from her parents’ to hers and then to Scott’s, and she rinses it out and pats it dry, then uses a paper towel to coat the inside with margarine. She adds the apples to the casserole dish, then mixes melted butter, brown sugar, flour and chopped walnuts to crumble over top. It’s her favourite dessert and the only one she can make. Her mother had made apple crisp every Sunday while Tessa was at home last fall, recovering, until Tessa had gotten sick and tired of being catered for and had made her mother show her how to make it herself.

While Tessa makes dessert, Scott Skypes his family. He calls her over to the living room partway through and she joins him briefly to say hi and Merry Christmas. Alma and Joe ask after Tessa’s parents and everyone seems happy to see Tessa, even Scott’s small nieces and nephews whom she would have sworn didn’t know she was alive. Scott doesn’t say much when he’s done, just pours them each a glass of merlot from a bottle he’s dug up from somewhere. They settle in on the couch, Tessa sitting with her back against one of the arms, feet in Scott’s lap so that she can stretch her legs. Tessa tries to tell Scott that it will be worth it, that all their hard work will pay off in the end, and he smiles at her like he appreciates the gesture, though he still seems quiet and distracted.

The timer on Tessa’s phone goes off and Scott takes the apple crisp out of the oven and heaps it into bowls that he carries into the living room and places on the coffee table. Before he sits down, he turns off the overhead light and Tessa’s attention is drawn again to the small plastic Christmas tree, probably a cast-off from Danny or Charlie, set up next to the TV. Scott’s decorated it with tinsel and some multi-coloured lights, and Tessa blinks, adjusting to the dimness. Scott tops up their glasses of wine and they wait for their desserts to cool.

Tessa is searching for something to say that’s not about their families or skating or Christmas when Scott says, in a rush, ‘Do you want to talk about what happened before? I mean, we probably should, right?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Tessa says, after a beat. They don’t have therapy until the second week in January, and anyway, they’ve agreed to try and get better at communicating outside of therapy.

Tessa doesn’t say anything else, just takes one of the bowls and a spoon and tries a small bite of apple crisp to see if it’s cool enough to eat. It is, and Scott picks up the other bowl. Tessa feels like Scott should start, but he doesn’t say anything, so she finally says that she’s sorry, even though she already apologised for losing her cool and even though she’s supposed to be working on giving Scott space to be responsible for his actions and reactions.

Apparently, Tessa saying something, anything, is all it takes for Scott to want to start talking. ‘I thought—’

He stops, swipes a hand over his face and up through his hair. ‘I guess I thought—I thought you—I thought we were done with that.’

Tessa’s shoulders are halfway up to her ears and she has to consciously lower them. She takes a deep breath and wills herself to stay calm. ‘I know we talked about it in therapy,’ she says, ‘and I know it’s been a year but it still—’

She doesn’t want to push Scott away by telling him things he’s not going to want to hear. She’s supposed to be working on that, too, so she pushes on. ‘It still hurts, sometimes, I guess.’

She risks a glance at Scott, catching him just as he glances at her. In the moment their eyes meet he seems like he’s listening, really listening, so she continues. ‘Most of the time it doesn’t, most of the time I just think of you the way you are right now, and it’s good, our programmes and our—our friendship, they’re both good right?’ Scott nods. It’s easier now that she’s started, and Tessa goes on, ‘But you were on my case about forgetting your present and I guess that upset me.’

Tessa pauses to organise her thoughts. She eats another spoonful of apple crisp, rolling the mix of soft apples and crunchy walnuts around on her tongue before swallowing. Scott’s working on giving Tessa time and space with which to express herself but that just means that right now Tessa has to keep talking.

‘I don’t even know why,’ Tessa finally admits. ‘You don’t even seem mad—’ Here she looks at Scott instead of at her bowl, and he nods in confirmation. ‘I guess—I don’t know, Scott, I just—I don’t know, okay? I guess it made me think of when I was so—when I had my surgery.’

She hates talking about her surgery; hates that the way it made her feel hasn’t gone away completely. She hates that maybe it didn’t fucking work, that it was maybe all for nothing. ‘Are you mad that I forgot?’

She braces for him to say yes, even though she doesn’t think he is. And she knows she’s not supposed to internalise Scott’s emotions, or what she thinks his emotions might be, but they’re so close, despite everything, that it’s hard.

Scott shakes his head adamantly.

‘Why did you keep giving me a hard time?’ Tessa asks.

‘I wasn’t giving you a hard time,’ Scott bursts out. Tessa looks at him, and he relents and says, ‘Okay, maybe I was, a little. But not in a—not in a mean way, you know?’

Tessa nods, because she knows. She twists the stem of her wine glass between her fingers and doesn’t let the subject drop. ‘Why, then?’

Scott spoons the last of his apple crisp into his mouth; chews; swallows; thinks about it.

‘You’ve always been better than me at everything,’ Scott starts, and this startles a quick, sharp laugh out of Tessa, because even though she’s heard it before, it surprises her every time with how absolutely untrue it is.

‘You’ve always been better than me at everything,’ Scott repeats, ‘and then today there’s this one thing that you didn’t get right, and that I did get right, and it’s kind of unbelievable, you know?’ He sets his empty wine glass on the table. ‘I guess it made me feel better about myself or something,’ he adds quietly. ‘But not in a way that was supposed to make you feel worse.’

It did make Tessa feel worse, but Scott’s eyes are pleading with her to believe him. And she does; she gets it. What she doesn’t get and will never get is Scott being down on himself.

‘Hey,’ she says, setting down her wine glass and reaching out until Scott leans toward her and puts his hand in hers. She’s emboldened by the wine, probably, and by how she and Scott are having this difficult, real conversation, just the two of them. ‘Don’t _ever_ think you’re not good enough, okay? You’re amazing. You’re so talented and hardworking and _good_ and so—so fun. I love skating with you.’ She makes herself stop there because she knows Scott knows she loves him; they’ve always been good at reminding each other of the important things. But Scott doesn’t know that she’s in love with him and Tessa’s not going to tell him and fuck up their entire careers, their entire lives. Not after she almost did that already, because of her legs. She still might, because if the surgery worked, like everyone’s always telling her did, then it’s Tessa who’s doing something wrong. ‘I love you,’ she says, and squeezes his hand, full stop. ‘Don’t ever doubt that, okay? You let me down one time, and it fucking hurt, it broke my fucking heart, Scott, but we’re working really hard on our partnership now, and we’re doing okay, right?’

Scott nods, looking more convinced than he had a minute ago.

Tessa squeezes his hand a final time. She picks up her wine glass and takes a fortifying gulp. ‘And anyway, you could argue you’re doing better than me,’ she says lightly. ‘You’re not the one who ruined Christmas.’

Scott shakes his head. ‘You— _we_ didn’t ruin anything, okay?’ He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself he didn’t ruin everything, and Tessa loves him for trying so hard to believe this, and for making the effort to talk things through.

She holds out her hand for Scott’s empty bowl and leans forward to pile both bowls on the coffee table. Tessa settles herself back against the arm of the couch and Scott shifts so his back is to the opposite arm. They can see each other more easily now.

‘I didn’t want to wait until today,’ Scott confesses. ‘I wanted to give you your present last week, that day Marina was riding your ass about your twizzles and you wanted to kill her. But I thought maybe it would be awkward because you wouldn’t have your present for me, you know?’

‘Ha ha, joke’s on you,’ Tessa says, and it’s not even funny, but Scott laughs anyway, a genuine belly laugh that makes her relax deeper into the cushion she’s got wedged behind her back.

Scott glances at Tessa’s wine glass then and then at Tessa. She nods, and Scott splits the last of the bottle between them. They sip at their wine for a while. The lights on Scott’s Christmas tree blink steadily, on and then off, again and again, casting the only light in the room. It’s quiet, and—good. The tension she was feeling in her body earlier has disappeared, leaving just the usual post-practice aches and pains, and the ever-present pain in her legs. She could go to sleep right now, probably. Probably she's a little bit drunk. Probably it's a good thing she’s eaten so early and will go to bed so early; she usually never drinks the night before a practice. She usually never drinks that much at all.

Scott’s living room is silent except for the ambient noise of the heating and maybe, Tessa fancies, the Christmas tree. There are certainly enough lights on the tree, at least three strings, the plastic branches bending under their weight.

The silence between them stretches on and on but it’s not uncomfortable now. She doesn’t make a move to go home, and Scott doesn’t make a move to go to bed. Tessa jumps a little when Scott finally does speak.

‘I didn’t forget,’ Scott says. He’s slurring his words ever so slightly. ‘About you, I mean. I could never forget about you, Tess. I just—I didn’t know what to say.’

Tessa knows. There were so many times she’d sat with her phone in her hands, after her surgery, trying to find something to say to Scott that would break past her fear and anger and crushing self-doubt. There hadn’t been anything that had made it far enough out of her head for her to be able to hit send.

‘You could have said anything,’ she says. Anything would have been better than nothing, better than the creeping silence that kept getting louder and louder until it consumed her entire world.

‘Yeah,’ Scott admits.

It’s the most they’ve ever talked about this on their own, and It’s probably dumb, but she’s proud of Scott right now. She’s proud of herself, too.

Tessa misses her family but she’s glad she’s here, in this moment, with Scott. Just because it’s different and new doesn’t mean it’s not good in its own way. She tries explain what she’s thinking to Scott.

‘I’m not just saying this because I completely forgot to get you anything, but—what if—’ Tessa takes a deep breath. ‘What if we forget about Christmas?’

Scott makes exaggerated _what the fuck_ eyes at her, and she giggles.

‘I’m listening,’ he says, voice serious.

‘I mean—we’re making this about what we need, about what works for us, right?’ She means her legs, about the pain she’s still in and the adjustments they’ve had to make to their training, to their schedule, to compensate. Scott nods and curls a hand around her calf, probably unconsciously.

They need to be different from everyone else, if they’re going to be the best.

‘What if instead of Christmas cards and presents or whatever, we just keep checking in with each other, like—like whenever. Like now.’

She’s not explaining this very well; she doesn’t want Scott to think she’s going to be inundating him with crap all the time like she’s his girlfriend or something. And anyway, Scott has— _something_ —going on with Jess, she knows, even if he and Tessa don’t really talk about it.

But Scott’s nodding like he gets it. ‘Like—like, random Tuesday thinking-of-you cards or something,’ he suggests.

‘Yeah, exactly,’ says Tessa, excited.

‘Sounds good to me, kiddo,’ Scott says. ‘This means you’re like, 200% not getting your present today, though.’

Tessa laughs. Scott nudges her legs and she moves so he can stand up, but all he does is shuffle along the couch until he’s sitting next to her. There are only inches between them now, and Scott reaches for her hand. It takes him a couple of tries to lace his fingers with hers, because of the dim light or because of the wine Tessa’s not sure.

Scott’s fingers intertwined with hers are warm and familiar and Tessa tries to stay just in this moment. They know what they are to each other and they know what the future holds, at least until the Olympics. She can spiral about the uncertainty of everything after the Olympics some other time. For now, she sits in the quiet, in the light from Scott’s tree, breathing through the pain in her legs, holding Scott’s hand.

‘Promise?’ she asks, and she hates how uncertain her voice sounds.

‘Promise,’ Scott says, firmly. He leans forward and for a wild moment she thinks he’s going to kiss her, but he reaches across her and grabs their wine glasses. Tessa has to pour some of the dregs of her wine into Scott’s glass so they can both drink.

She’s tired, and Scott’s shoulder is so close. She leans into him, just for a moment, and closes her eyes. She must fall asleep there, at barely nine p.m. on Christmas Day, because she wakes up the next morning stretched out on Scott’s couch, a blanket tickling her chin, to Scott’s too-cheerful morning voice saying she’d better get a move on or they’ll be late for practice.

  

After practice Tessa orders a Maple Leafs toque online to be delivered to Scott’s address. It’s to go with the scarf she got him two years ago, the one he still wears. Impulsively, she adds the mittens she was going to get him next year to her order. Even if she has to stop skating for good after the Olympics, they’re not going to fall out of touch again. She doesn’t have to save up her gift for next Christmas because they’re going to ignore the whole holiday, the two of them. They’ve promised each other they’re not going drift off into acquaintances who used to skate with each other and only get in touch at birthdays and holidays. They've promised.

  

The first Tuesday morning after Christmas Tessa finds a box of Turtles tucked into the side of the bag where she keeps her skates and practice gear. She tears through the plastic packaging right away, opens the box and treats herself to one of the nutty caramel chocolate lumps. She shares some with Charlie and Meryl, and with Scott, and puts aside the rest for a rainy day. In the afternoon, when she’s putting her skates away, she finds the card from Scott at the bottom of her bag. It has a scene from a Russian production of _The Nutcracker_ on the front, and all the Christmas references have been crossed out with a black Sharpie.

It makes her smile for the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Easy People' by The Nields.
> 
> Come yell with me on Twitter about ice dancing and other random occurrences: @/mfparaph


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